Hey Jared :-)
Your responses lack your normal logical progression and analytical integrity. I find your lifestyle and particualrly your financial advice very interesting, particularly your local sourcing and sustainability. Your lack of logical consistency and your projection on this subject is, IMO, revealing.
Your overarching error is that animals are "quickly and instantly" killed in slaughterhouses. It is not a case of the animal living a normal life in the wild one minute, and then the next minute it is dead. The process, particularly the transport and processing at the plant, takes hours to days. Particularly the last hours when they arrive at the slaughterhouse. They can smell the blood. They can hear the terrified screams of the other animals being killed. They are lucky if the killing process isn't botched and they end up on a meat hook bleading out. There is a reason that huge numbers of slaughterhouse workers get PTSD.
Specifics:
1. I find your claim "most of them...Most are very good" both dubious and a red herring obfuscation. Here's a playlist of 20 slaughterhouse videos I found in 30 seconds on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLabM0z9DQA_4vw4h1fCduq_iJD6zXiflR Have you seen "most of them" not to mention the 100s of others? What exactly do you describe as "very good" about them?
I have had dozens of conversations with people about slaughterhouse videos and read dozens of articles from people who have made the videos and also from the people who have worked in slaughterhouses. I've seen hundreds of comments about them. As far as I can remember, never have I heard the phrase, "very good" in conjuction with those videos UNLESS it was saying they are "very good" at proving how fucking horrible modern slaughterhouses are. Thus my honest question.
1a. Don't put words in my fingers. I find your use of a euphamism for "slaughterhouse" revealing. I didn't tell you to not use "abattoir." I have no authority over you. I didn't tell you that word is forbidden. THAT would be policing, and that is NOT what I did.
2. Slavery, patriarchy, gay bashing and wanton murder are all ancient. How about we improve where we can? Humans are omnivores. Not everyone can eat plant-based, for financial and phyiscal reasons. If we want to survive as a species, a lot more people will need to transition to plant-based. That is a mathematical reality.
3. You absolutely reject my first sentence, "It is not like turkeys are frolicking on an midwest meadow one minute and then "quickly and instantly" killed the next"?! See above under "overarching." My statement is objective, measurable reality, Jared.
This is your first false dichotomy: That the ONLY choices are we kill animals in slaughterhouses or they are "shreded" in the wild. If an animal is not raised for slaughter the first scenario does not exist at all.
Aprpopos "shreded" - Do you know what happens to the male chicks in a factory chicken farm? They are "shreded" alive. Sorted, thrown on a conveyor belt, and fed into a grinder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVCvXkAFnsA
4. Here is your second false dichotomy. The choice is not between factory manufactured foods and meat. According to Oxford Martin (an endowment school of Oxford University), 77% of land used for agriculture is for livestock. I've seen wide ranges on that number, 77% is in the middle. I use it as the OM research is clear and understandable, and from a very mainstream source.
https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-dietshttps://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets
If those of us in 1st world countries went plant-based we could easily feed the world by cutting out the very inefficient method of converting plants to meat through livestock. The amount of fresh water, transport, housing, chemicals, antibiotics, electricity, etc. needed for this conversion is super inefficient. For example, most land cleared in the Amazon today is for livestock or crops to feed livestock.
There are 20,000 to 50,000 edible plant species on Earth, depending on who is counting. Legumes alone have great amounts of protein. You don't need meat.
Meat is traditional. Meat is customary. Meat is NOT a requirement for humans. I noted above that this is based on people like you and me, who live in the 1st world. A family living in the Gobi or on the coast of Somalia cannot go vegan. They will eat what they can. For most of the nearly 900 million of us in North America and the EU, particularly the 200+ million in the higher income brackets, it is a different story. We can go somewhat to completely plant based with little change to our day to day lives after a transition phase of about six months of physically getting used to no meat and dairy (about one month) and adjusting shopping habits (4-6 months).
I went plant-based 5+ years ago. It was super easy once I got over craving cheese! Yeah, sometimes I eat an egg when there are no fruits and vegetables available at breakfast traveling to small and/or rural towns. There is never a problem getting enough calories or protein. I just order salads and side dishes. It is actually super-cheap in most countries, because meat dishes are expensive.
I have a very good friend with whom I disagree strongly on about 10% of politics. Makes for some very interesting conversations. His opinion on eating meat is, "it is delicious murder." I can disagree with him while respecting that he is at least brutally honest about his actions.
